Tagged: goals

I’ve studied quite a bit about the psychology of goal-setting over the past several years.

One way to improve your ability to attain your goals is by making them “positive”. And by that, I’m not referring to the end result being some positive, or beneficial, thing (although it probably should be, right?).

If you want to accomplish something, change your behavior, break a bad habit, establish a new habit, etc., defining the proper goal should be one of your first steps.

It’s important to phrase your goal in a very specific way.

To begin with, try making SMART goals that are:

Specific – well defined and not vague – so you know more specifically how to proceed

Measurable – so you can tell how you’re progressing and whether you’ve achieved your goal

Attainable – otherwise, what’s the point? If it’s not realistic, you’ll just be discouraged and won’t work to achieve it, or you’ll be demoralized when you don’t reach it.

Relevant – it should tie in with your broader life goals and help you become more like the person you want to be.

Time-bound – a deadline can add a sense of urgency and help motivate you.

Then you should definitely write down your goal on paper (or at least in some file that you look at on occasion). This makes the goal more “real”. Also, if your goal is somewhere where you’ll see it on a regular basis (like written on a post-it on your bathroom mirror), the additional reminders will make you more likely to work harder on it.

One thing people often don’t think about, but should, is exactly how the goal is worded. Specifically, your goal should be written in a positive way – to incite you toward a behavior – that is, “doing” something rather than “not doing” something.

As an example, if you wanted to stop yourself from eating so much junk food, do NOT set a goal like, “I will eat less junk food” or “I will not eat junk food”.

To explain why, try this: for the next 60 seconds, try to not think of elephants.

See? It’s impossible. The phrasing of the goal itself is making you think of the thing you’re trying to avoid. If your goal is to not eat sweets, then while working on your goal your brain will constantly be thinking about sweets and thus sabotaging your efforts.

Instead, think of some other behavior that you can substitute for the behavior you’re trying to replace. Or think of some new behavior that could impact your ability to behave the old way.

If you’re trying to eat better, try a goal like, “I will eat five cups of vegetables per day”. After eating all those vegetables you might not have room left for sweets. Or how about, “I will drink 16 oz of water before each meal.” To be complete, you might want to say it like this, “Every day until April 15th, I will drink 16oz of water before each meal.” Then by April 15th, you may have established a new habit.

Switching from a negative to a positive phrasing can take some work to figure out at first for some goals, but ultimately is a rather simple change that can have a big effect on your ability to get what your after.